Tag Archives: female politicians

10 Countries That Have Elected Women Into The Highest Office

adminNovember 2, 2010 //

This week, Brazil got its first female president, Dilma Rousseff, who was formerly the energy secretary and chief of staff to President Luiz Inácio da Silva. Taking 56 percent of the vote, Rousseff said, “I hope the fathers and mothers of little girls will look at them and say, ‘Yes, women can.’” It seems trite to be all “girl power!” about this, but I get kind of giddy when a lady is elected into a country’s highest office. A handful of South American governments are being run by women now, and there are women in top political offices around the world. We’ve rounded up some of them up after the jump. [Newser] Keep reading »

Today’s Lady News: Rabbi Bans Women From Running In Local Elections

Jessica WakemanMay 26, 2010 //
  • The chief rabbi of the Elon Moreh settlement in the West Bank has banned women from running in local elections, writing in a newspaper that they can be represented through their husbands. Rabbi Elyakim Levanon wrote his decree in response to a young woman who wished to run for the office of local secretary. [BBC]
  • Oral contraceptives are the most popular form of birth control in the U.S., according to a study of over 10 million women by the National Center for Health Statistics. The report also estimated that 62 percent of women of childbearing age use some form of birth control. [U.S. News & World Reports]

Keep reading »

Do You Really Care Who Does Hillary Clinton’s Makeup?

Jessica WakemanNovember 18, 2009 //

Oh, for crying out loud. Hillary Clinton is the Secretary of State, a big and important job in which the president actually listens to what she has to say. So why, then, is the entire first paragraph of a recent Vogue article about Clinton dedicated to the color of her pantsuit at the U.N. General Assembly meeting recently (red, in case you were wondering)?

In the next paragraph, we learn that one day at the State Department Clinton was “wearing no makeup” and looked “tired and cranky.” Fret not, though, because her deputy chief of staff handed her a cosmetics bag and Clinton applied her own mascara, lipstick, blush and powder.

Really, Vogue? I don’t care that Clinton does her own makeup and (still) wears brightly colored pantsuits. Keep reading »

Would We Still Have War If Women Ran The World?

Jessica WakemanAugust 25, 2009 //

If you missed The New York Times Magazine‘s excellent “Saving the World’s Women” edition focusing on the issues facing women in the developing world, don’t fret! You can still read it online. I enjoyed the piece on how women’s rights are the cause of our time, the interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the piece about Afghan schoolgirls.

The piece in “Saving The World’s Women” that really stuck out, however, is the interview with the female president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The 67-year-old is Africa’s first woman elected to office and a lifelong activist who has been imprisoned and charged with treason for fighting against Liberia’s past oppressive government. When Liberians elected President Sirleaf to their highest office, the event was, as the Times put it, “a kind of feminist fantasy come true.”

But President Sirleaf’s interview dealt with another issue which I happen to think is a total fantasy—the notion that if women ran the world, we wouldn’t have any wars anymore. Keep reading »